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Pit bull ban means new Jays pitcher Buehrle will live alone

Pitcher Mark Buehrle, 33, tells ESPN his wife and two children will stay home with the family’s American Staffordshire terrier, while he lives solo in Toronto.

The Blue Jays acquired starting pitcher Mark Buehrle, but not his dog, in a blockbuster trade during the off-season. Buehrle will leave his family and pets behind as he relocates to Toronto. (Mark J. Terrill / AP FILE PHOTO)

Mark Buehrle’s decision to live away from his wife and young children during the coming baseball season, rather than part with his outlawed pit bull, may seem strange on the surface.

But it’s not out of the ordinary for ballplayers to carry on long-distance relationships with loved ones from April to October in order to maintain some semblance of stability in their family life — whether to keep the kids in school or, in Buehrle’s case, keep a beloved pet out of the kennel.

“There’s a reason why some of these guys are willing to give up millions of dollars for the right to have a no-trade clause,” said Adam Karon, an agent to several major-league players.

Unfortunately for Buehrle, one of the Blue Jays’ marquee off-season acquisitions, the Miami Marlins refused to hand out no-trade clauses last year when he signed a four-year contract worth $58 million.

He took the richer deal, and with it the risk he could be shipped, as he was in November as part of the Jays’ 12-player swap with Miami.

Instead the 33-year-old left-hander was forced to choose between moving his family to Buffalo or Niagara Falls, N.Y., and commuting to the Rogers Centre; leaving his pit bull behind with friends or family; or heading to pit bull-hating Ontario by himself.

So while Buehrle will travel north to Toronto in April, his wife, Jamie, will stay at the family home in St. Louis with 5-year-old son Braden, 3-year-old daughter Brooklyn and their brood of four dogs, which includes Slater, a 2-year-old American Staffordshire terrier prohibited under Ontario’s pit bull ban.

“We’re not trying to make people feel sorry for us,” Buehrle told ESPN. “Obviously they’re going to say, ‘You make a lot of money. Boo hoo.’ I know it’s part of baseball and every person deals with it, but this is our first time being away from each other (for the entire) season. We’re going to travel and see each other and make it work. But those nights when we have a Sunday day game and I can go home and have dinner with the family and give the kids a bath and put them to bed, that’s what I’m going to miss.”

Karon said each family is different, but it’s not uncommon for a player, especially with school-age children, to live on his own during the season.

“You want continuity for these kids,” he said, adding that some families will reunite during the summer when school is out.

Buehrle clearly considers his dogs to be part of the family. He equated moving to Toronto without Slater to abandoning a child.

“That would be like if we moved somewhere that only allowed boys. I wouldn’t leave my daughter behind,” he told ESPN. “Six or seven months is a lot of time. Slater would adjust. He’s real easygoing. But I don’t want him to bond with someone else. He’s our dog. That wasn’t really an option.”

The Buehrles are outspoken animal-rights advocates, who have dealt with these bans before. Pit bull breeds are also barred from Miami-Dade County, where the Marlins play, so the Buehrles lived one county over and commuted an extra 30 minutes.

Jamie Buehrle mounted a campaign against the Miami ban last year upon arriving in the city, and local advocates hoped she and Mark would attach their star power to the fight against the ban in Ontario.

But they decided they couldn’t live in the city without their dog, and in Toronto it’s harder to escape the ban — legislatively known as the Dog Owner’s Liability Act — which covers the entire province.

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